VAA Virginia Asphalt Fall/Winter 2021

08 FALL/WINTER 2021 GETTINGTOKNOW Virginia’s Secretary of Transportation, Shannon Valentine Shannon Valentine was appointed secretary of transportation by Governor Ralph Northam in January 2018 and oversees Virginia’s $6 billion multimodal transportation system crossing seven agencies with more than 10,000 employees. Secretary Valentine is a former member of the Virginia House of Delegates. Her legislative priorities focused on transpor- tation, economic development, education and ethics. She was named Transporta- tion Woman of the Year by WTS Central Virginia Chapter in both 2021 and 2017. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the Univer- sity of Virginia in economics. Additionally, she graduated from the Sorenson Institute at UVA and completed a four-year theology course through Sewanee University’s School of Theology. Secretary Valentine recently agreed to answer some questions for Virginia Asphalt readers. VAA→ Over the last four years, you have served as Virginia’s secretary of transportation and before that as a CTB member and member of the House of Delegates. With the differ- ent roles, how has your perspective on transportation changed? VALENTINE→ Prior to entering public life, I spent many years working in Lynch- burg’s inner city with organizations such as Habitat for Humanity, Lynchburg Housing Partnership, Lynchburg Neighborhood Development Foundation, Beacon of Hope and Lynchburg City School Foundation. While the work focused on education and housing, it was through these efforts that I learned the vital importance of transpor- tation in people’s lives. And it was through this work that I was asked to run for a seat in the House of Delegates, leading to my service on the House Transportation Com- mittee, the Commonwealth Transportation Board and now as secretary. Looking back, there was a study that helped me see the integration of my life’s work. In 2015, Harvard Business Review released a study that found that the most significant factor for lifting a family out of poverty was transportation—above test scores of children, the percentage of two-parent households and crime in neighborhoods. My guiding principle has always been that reliable transportation has the power to drastically transform lives. It touches people each and every day and determines whether they have access to jobs, food, shelter, medicine and opportunity. What has changed for me is that my understand- ing of the foundational role of transpor- tation in communities, across regions and throughout our Commonwealth has been strengthened—and made more vivid, more personal and more fundamental. VAA→ With the new Federal High- way Transportation bill being developed, many environmentally focused or green initiatives are included. Fortunately, industry has been responsive to being better environmental stewards through innovative technologies. How- ever, the pace of innovation has exceeded the pace of adoption by agencies. Do you envision more directives or legislation being passed in the future to speed up adoption? VALENTINE→ Virginia’s Transportation Secretariat has made a real commitment to environmental sustainability. I am work- ing to start up an Office of Transportation Sustainability, which will be charged with addressing the transportation needs of Virginians in an environmentally responsi- ble manner. While the office will reside in VDOT at this time, it will coordinate with the entire Transportation Secretariat and focus on these key areas: investments, resil- iency, decarbonization and stewardship. We are fortunate in Virginia to have one of the most substantial asphalt pavement research programs in the country. Much of that program is devoted to advancing technologies that the Commonwealth and localities can safely adopt to be better environmental stewards without sacrific- ing performance and value. Core to that program is support for VDOT’s initiative on performance-based asphalt mix design (i.e., My guiding principle has always been that reliable transportation has the power to drastically transform lives. It touches people each and every day and determines whether they have access to jobs, food, shelter, medicine and opportunity.